Enumclaw School Officials Celebrate Successes in Latest Release of State Scores

There is reason for Enumclaw educators, families and students to pat themselves on the back after .

The exams include the Measurements of Student Progress (MSP), High School Proficiency Exams (HSPEs) and high school End-of-Course (EOC) exams, and District Director of curriculum, instruction and assessment Terry Parker said in the , "every school has successes they can celebrate."

Parker highlighted a number of noteworthy accomplishments during Tuesday's School Board work session, including the fact that in both and , more than half of the schools' eighth graders had already passed the EOC algebra exam that is now a high school graduation requirement in the state.

Ninety-six out of 149 eighth graders at EMS passed the exam, coming to a 63.3 percent passage rate, and 73 of 141 TMMS students passed at a rate of 51.8 percent. "It's an outstanding score," Parker said. "Those are great things that we celebrate."

As a educator in the district for 20 years, Parker recalled when he first started, the norm for students entering ninth grade was pre-algebra. The district has made a deliberate effort to push students toward more rigorous coursework and aims to make algebra the new norm for all eighth graders in the district, he said.

This also enables students to pursue more advanced courses in high school including AP Calculus in their junior year and AP Statistics or AP Physics in their senior year, said Superintendent Mike Nelson.

Reading Solid

Having noticed reading scores over the last few years were starting to waver as officials put their efforts into improving math scores, Parker said the district last year reinvigorated its reading program at all grade levels.

"As a result of this focused work, we enjoyed significantly improved student reading scores at most grade levels," he wrote in a report to the School Board.

A few milestones including third and eighth grades achieving the highest reading scores ever; fourth grade also achieved its highest score over the state average, he said.

The district has historically had a strong reading program thanks to the work that educators put in in the last 10 years, and present officials didn't want to let that hard work slip away. "In my view, it wasn't an accident that the scores were back up," he said.

Improvements Needed

Two areas that Parker identified as needing work were fourth grade math and seventh grade writing.

The MSP/HSPE district average for fourth grade math in 2010 was a 44.5 passage rate, and it jumped dramatically in 2011 to 71.2 percent. However, in 2012, the passage rate fell more than 10 percent to 57.8 percent.

The new passage rate is still above the state average, said Parker, but school officials aren't going to let that achievement gap grow and will be strategizing in the coming months how to bring scores back up and more importantly, make sure each student understands the concepts and materials they're tested on.

This is the work that teachers will be doing in assessing students and planning lessons during the early-dismissal Friday PLCs, he said.

Parker theorizes the lower writings scores for seventh graders may be related to a new Springboard curriculum that the students are using. It needs to better align with state standards and teachers will also be assessing how to get students ready for the exams next spring.

Other Areas of Note

Parker tracked year over year results for a number of grade levels and noted the following achievements:

• District 3rd grade reading level in 2011 was 0.5 percent below the state average. That same class as 4th graders is now 5.0 percent above the state average in 2012.
• District 4th grade reading level was 0.3 percent below the state average in 2011. The same class of 5th graders is now 6.1 percent above the state average in 2012.
• District 7th grade reading level was 1.9 percent above the state average in 2011. The same class of 8th graders is now 10.5 percent above the state average in 2012.

School-Specific Highlights

• 8 of 8 Grade Levels and Subject Areas showed score improvement compared to last year
• 6 of 8 Grade Levels and Subject Areas scored above the state average
• 3rd Grade MSP Reading scores at 87.8%, which is highest school score, +19.1% above state average
• 3rd Grade MSP Math scores at 80.5%, which is highest school score, an improvement of +10.5%, +15.2% above state average, and highest above state ever
• 4th grade MSP Reading scores at 90.6%, which is highest school score, an improvement of +20.0%, +19.2% above state average, and highest above state ever
• 4th grade MSP Math scores at 73.6%, which is highest school score, +14.3% above state average, and highest above state ever
• 4th grade MSP Writing scores at 81.1%, which is highest school score, an improvement of +22.3%, +19.8% above state average, and highest above state ever
• 5th grade MSP Math scores at 72.5%, which is highest school score, an improvement of +17.2%, +8.8% above state average, and highest above state ever
• 5th grade MSP Science scores at 90.6%, which is highest school score, an improvement of +20.0%, and +19.2% above state average

• 5 of 8 Grade Levels and Subject Areas showed score improvement compared to last year
• 5th grade MSP Reading scores at 68.7%, which is +9.8% gain

• 6 of 8 Grade Levels and Subject Areas showed score improvement compared to last year
• 6 of 8 Grade Levels and Subject Areas scored above the state average
• 4th grade MSP Reading scores at 96.3%, which is highest school score, an improvement of +16.0%, +24.9% above state average, and highest above state ever
• 5th grade MSP Reading scores at 90.3%, which is highest school score, an improvement of +11.5%, and +19.3% above state average
• 5th grade MSP Science scores at 83.9%, which is highest school score, an improvement of +21.8%, and +17.8% above state average

• 7 of 8 Grade Levels and Subject Areas showed score improvement compared to last year
• 6 of 8 Grade Levels and Subject Areas scored above the state average
• 3rd grade MSP Reading scores at 83.1%, which is highest school score, +14.4% above state average, and highest above state ever
• 4th grade MSP Reading scores at 82.4%, which is highest school score, an improvement of +15.2%, +11.0% above state average, and highest above state ever
• 4th grade MSP Math scores at 72.5%, which is highest school score, +13.2% above state average, and highest above state ever
• 4th grade MSP Writing scores at 68.6%, which is highest school score, an improvement of +12.9%, +7.3% above state average, and highest above state ever
• 5th grade MSP Math scores at 67.2.9%, which is highest school score, and an improvement of +12.3%
• 5th grade MSP Science scores at 64.1%, which is an improvement of +20.2%

• 6 of 8 Grade Levels and Subject Areas showed score improvement compared to last year
• 3rd grade MSP Math scores at 70.0%, which is highest school score, +17.1% gain, +4.7% above state average, and highest above state ever
• 5th grade MSP Science scores at 69.0%, which is highest school score, and +8.5% gain

• 6 of 8 Grade Levels and Subject Areas scored above the state average
• 6th grade MSP Math scores at 67.3%, which is highest school score, and +5.9%
• 8th grade MSP Math scores at 72.5%, which is +17.1% above state average
• 8th grade MSP Science scores at 80.1%, which is +13.8% above state average
• 8th grade EOC Algebra 1 scores at (96/149) 63.3% on high school level state graduation math requirement
• 8th grade EOC Geometry scores at (6/6) 100.0% on high school level state graduation math requirement

• 7th grade MSP Reading scores at 74.4%, which is highest school score, and an improvement of +18.0%
• 8th grade MSP Reading scores at 80.0%, which is highest school score, an improvement of +14.2%, +12.8 above state average, and highest above state ever
• 8th grade MSP Science scores at 75.0%, which is highest school score, an improvement of +14.4%, and +8.7 above state average
• 8th grade EOC Algebra 1 scores at (73/141) 51.8% on high school level state graduation math requirement
• 8th grade EOC Geometry scores at (10/10) 100.0% on high school level state graduation math requirement

• 10th grade HSPE Reading scores at 86.6% which is +5.5% above state average
• First-year EOC Biology scores at 63.3% which is +2.2 above state average
• EOC Geometry scores at 84.8% which is +5.6% above state average